A rustling of needlesA swirl of snowKicked up by a yearning windThe head-downplodding stepof my ancestorsthat ends in me

What is the gravity &lightness of this?

of stopping in the middle of the pathnaked of all my finery& belief

letting the moon see me this wayletting us see each otherbrilliant in our sorrowluminous in our joyheaving with the fullnessof our lossall the babieswe've birthed, reared, mournedall the footprints of wild animalsin the night snow

where in stoppingwe stop runningwe whisper to each otherthe moon & Iwe stand in what we knowand learn to bear it:

this joy that burns like blood returningto a sleeping limb

this surrender

to the moon's vision

her wet eyeher cold fire

in which I stand​& blaze​

//\\//\\//\\ Creative Rage & The Feminine Voice //\\//\\//\\

Oh beloved ones. Oh my soul. I am tired. I am tired of being a woman in the ways I've learned. I am tired of being sweet to you and holding back a roar that would shake the room, one that would knock you from your seat, and into the arms of real love.

I’m tired of the death-breath of this culture—which blows through spirituality, poetry, healing, and education—and seeks to control true beauty and vulnerability by insisting on an unreal aesthetics of purity, certainty, positivity, and light. I am tired of these forces that originate in patriarchy that would marginalize our intense emotions as hysteria to be cleansed, neutralized, or transcended. I’m tired of transcendence. I’m tired of belief. I’m tired of striving and intending. Just give me life. Just give me my feelings, my pleasure, my longing, my moans and sighs and howls.

When I express my rage—the rage I feel over my own sexual trauma and a culture built upon violence against women and the earth—I’m not having a temper tantrum or an episode. I’m not going to punch a pillow to get rid of it. This rage cannot and rightfully will not be moved by the techniques meant for the simple anger that is more akin to frustration—what we feel when we don’t get something we want. No, I am talking about that rage that’s in your belly, and deeper than that, the rumbling coming up from deep in the womb of the earth. This rage can and will and must be heard. This is the rage of a mama wolf baring her teeth.

If I am able to feel it, I trust that you can feel it too. Try as we might to cleanse or contain it, this rage is not for us to transcend. It is for us—all of us, and especially women—to feel, to learn to stand in this holy fire. To risk feeling this rage—and thus knowing its power—is in itself a subversive act, a sign that, as Helene Cixous writes, “the system is already letting something else through.” This rage I am feeling and telling is not one that makes you hard or violent, but rather flays your heart wide open, intensifying your capacity to feel, to discern and set wise boundaries, to protect the most tender and vulnerable ones among us, including the children within ourselves.​

To write or speak or sing or demonstrate or teach from this stance of creative rage is the most potent way I know to manifest a reality in which we can all one day be free. In this new year, as you witness your own emotional world, and the revolutionary moment in which we stand, I invite you to listen more closely--both within and without--for a rumbling beneath the hum of our goals, our hopes, our fears: this feminine rage, this creative rage...it is the volcanic heaving of a new world birthing. This year, instead of setting goals to get what I want, I choose to listen, to testify to her desire. This surrender is the deepest peace I know. May your new year bring you deep peace & much joy.​

your words resonate with the truest part of my soul. i'm so happy i spent time studying the 'law of attraction' as i find there's much validity to it. but it's part of a much larger, fuller, richer story... your words reflect some of that story. thank you for sharing your beautiful spirit through words!

Reply

Opal

3/2/2016 12:41:06 pm

Thank you Ariella, for being such a beautiful truth-sayer and lover-of-all-life! In awe, Opal